The USDA Farm Services Agency (FSA), which acquired orthoimagery in Wisconsin each year from 2004-2006, hopes to raise $300,000 in partnership funding for a potential National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) flight in 2008. According to Larry Cutforth from the Wisconsin FSA office, partnership funding makes the ’08 flight much more likely, but not guaranteed.
If flown, the 2008 flight would have specifications similar to 2005: color (infrared a possibility), 1-meter spatial resolution, leaf-on (June to September flights), referenced to UTM zone 15 or 16 coordinates. An interim product would be delivered within 60 days of the flights in MrSID-formatted county mosaics, with the final products delivered during the summer of 2009 in GeoTIFF format.
In 2005, USDA raised a total of approximately $240,000 in partner contributions. State agencies contributed $180,000, with the remainder coming from several counties. The total cost for the 2005 Wisconsin NAIP project was approximately $1 million.